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About The/Nudge

The/Nudge is an action institute building resilient livelihoods to alleviate poverty. We work with women, farmers, tribals and youth on rural development, agriculture, skilling and economic inclusion, along with 15+ central and state government partners.

Our economic inclusion journey for 25 million Indians, has reached 10 states with $250M of government funding to cover 1.25M people. Our incubator, accelerator and grand challenges have supported 200+ social entrepreneurs including 17 Forbes 30U30, 3 EarthShot Prize winners, 1 Time Magazine cover and more.

Set up with support from 90+ eminent philanthropists , 40+ corporates and 15+ foundations including Gates, Mackenzie Scott, Vinod Khosla, Nandan Nilekani, Tata Trusts, Skoll, Meta, LinkedIn, HDFC, Mphasis, KPMG and L'Oreal, we are contributing towards a "poverty-free India, within our lifetime".

About the Program

The/Nudge Prize guides markets to solve for the economically excluded through grand incentive competitions. We offer incentives that meet the seed / series capital aspirations of the brightest tech-first problem solvers, demonstrate investability, and mobilize sustained attention and momentum for the problem area through our interventions. Three challenges (Cisco Agri Challenge, Ashirvad Water Challenge & DCM Shriram AgWater Challenge) have been launched so far with a strong emphasis on leveraging the potential of technology to solve the problems of India’s excluded populations.

Who are we solving for?

The/Nudge Prize is focused on building mission mode, market-led ecosystems to use technology to solve the stagnant challenges of various economically excluded populations that prevent their access to resilient livelihoods. Two of our past challenges have focused on the challenges faced by India’s smallholder farmers.

Our focus areas for FY24-25 include,

• Building the Future of Women in Work : Increase the participation of economically excluded women in productive livelihood sectors.

• Solo to Deci : Unlock the job creation potential of India’s nano and micro enterprises.

• Circularity and Livelihoods : Design circular systems to solve environmental challenges that influence and create livelihoods.

Each focus area can have multiple incentive competitions, each of which may range from 12 to 36 months.

What are we solving for?

The ability of markets to solve large, wicked problems through the levers of technology and innovation, thereby serving the underserved, has been well-documented throughout history. However, their ability to play this role is limited by two key bottlenecks - 1. The high cost of acquiring customers from underserved populations, which is often tied to geographical fragmentation and low awareness of market solutions among these populations, and, 2. Solutions for the underserved typically have a longer gestation period before their impact and returns are visible.

Incentive competitions, or grand challenges as they are more commonly known, are an effective model to deploy philanthropic capital to align both economic and prosocial incentives that can act as powerful orchestrating instruments. The/Nudge Prize is pioneering this social innovation model along with a tech-first lens across India, to induce markets to develop or scale solutions in a competitive environment, demonstrate real evidence of impact and growth, and grow with the support of an aligned, mission-mode ecosystem

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What will you do?

Incentive competitions rely on multiple success factors, of which three in particular are important for a Research Associate at The/Nudge Prize to understand :

1. Identifying domain specific problem statements which can create or support large scale livelihoods across India

2. Design nudges & administer inducement strategies that support impact and growth of participating organizations (contestants) during and after the competition

3. Support challenge teams in jury evaluation and selections across various stages (semi finals, finals, winner & runner up),

To this end, the Research Associate will

1. Support problem statement design by

   1. Building a strong understanding of the domain through literature reviews, public consultations and field surveys, culminating in a publishable distillation report that outlines key bottlenecks and opportunities

   2. Work with the design lead, a technical partner and members of a domain council consisting of key thought leaders and actors to design, process & document a problem statement(s) which outlines the opportunity and solution targets (thresholds, demographics, geographies)

2. Support evidence generation during and after the competition

   1. Work with a technical partner to develop a multi-step framework to map performance and progress of contestants.

   2. Work with the competition lead and a technical partner to monitor progress and evaluate performance of contestants (baseline, midline, endline), and aid the jury selection of finalists and the winner.

   3. Work with the design lead and a technical partner to measure long-term impact and growth through impact evaluations, RCTs or landscape studies.

In addition, the Associate will also

3. Build / manage robust mechanisms and muscles for research and evidence generation

   1. Identify and onboard relevant technical partner(s), and manage the engagement lifecycle

   2. Structure and program manage visioning roundtables with domain council(s)

   3. Create / acquire and curate databases with information on key a) end users, b) technology organizations, c) ecosystem organizations, across various domains

   4. Design / identify and manage innovative data collection mechanisms (digital infrastructure, passive field teams, etc.)

4. Design / manage / follow standards for process excellence

Who are we looking for in this role?

• 1-3 years of work experience doing diverse projects at think tanks, public or private research (primary / qualitative, market, sectoral analysis), consulting, or strategy organizations

• Passion and hunger for solving big social problems at scale using technology

• Demonstrated ability to learn continuously and collaborate with stakeholders in multiple spaces of ambiguity (0 to 1 journey of product development)

• Demonstrated ability to go deep into problems in collaboration with partners and key voices in the domain

• Demonstrated ability to build mechanisms and muscles that can benefit the team, the organization, and potentially the larger ecosystem

• Demonstrated ability to experiment with creative solutions

• Comfortable with working from the office (based out of Bangalore)

• Written and spoken fluency in English. Other languages are a bonus.

• Willingness to stay and travel as and when required

• Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills

We aspire to be an inclusive and diverse organization and encourage qualified individuals irrespective of their religion, caste, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or any other dimension of identity, to apply.